Raphael Aben-Ezra, how art thou better than a beast?
W hat pre-eminence hast thou, not merely over this dog, But over the fleas whom thou so wantonly cursest?
Man must painfully win house, clothes, fire....

A pretty proof of his wisdom, when every flea has the wit to make my blanket, without any labour of his own, lodge him a great deal better than it lodges me! Man makes clothes, and the fleas live in them....

Which is the wiser of the two ?....
'Ah, but--man is fallen....

Well--and the flea is not.

So much better he than the man; for he is what he was intended to be, and so fulfils the very definition of virtue, which no one can say of us of the red-ochre vein.